


'Tis After Death

by Anielka



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Athelstan goes to people's dreams, During the siege of Paris, Gen, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:49:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16071071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anielka/pseuds/Anielka
Summary: “Jesus, help Ragnar.”“I can’t, he’s a pagan.”“But you don’t have all the facts.”“Which are?”“I love him.”“Athelstan no.”Athelstan is dead and in Heaven but still trying to keep Ragnar safe. For this, he asks Jesus Christ himself to help him.It doesn't go exactly as expected but Athelstan manages to reach his goal.





	'Tis After Death

**Author's Note:**

> This has been on my notes for forevveeeeer and I finally got it down!  
> I also have a new computer! Yay me!   
> I hope you enjoy this unbeta'd vomiting of words :)

 

 

Athelstan kneels before God saying things he'd never thought he'd say.

"Please, Lord," he looks up to the golden throne where Jesus Christ is sitting, looking all Glory and Perfection. "Please help Ragnar Lothbrok."

Jesus smiles sadly at him.

"I cannot intervene."

The priest cocks his head to one side, a trick learned from Ragnar and tries his best not to sound reproachful.

"The Lord is omnipotent. There is nothing he cannot do."

"Athelstan…" Jesus sighs, though not unkindly. It reminds him of how Lagertha spoke to his children; a loving, parental figure who is about to say ‘no'.

"Is it because he is not baptized?"

"No, it's not because he is not baptized," Jesus says after a moment.

"Is it because he has blasphemed?"

"No, it is not that either." Jesus chuckles softly, and Athelstan stares attentively at His face as the Lord smiles. All the saints were right, he thinks, to describe God as the most beautiful being in the universe. Athelstan wonders if it is blasphemy to still like Ragnar's laugh the best.

What would they do to him, he wonders, if he sinned in Heaven? Throw him out?

He'd crawl to Odin's feet and beg for Valhalla.

Maybe is this lack of devotion why the Lord won't help him.

"It is not your fault, either." God smiles at him. He knows everything.

"Is it because he has murdered?" He asks then, and Jesus' eyebrows are raised in a very human manner of surprise. "Because he may kill, but he regrets it. Sometimes." Athelstan is by now an expert in defending Ragnar. To kings, and priests, to himself. His Viking may not always be right, but his intentions are usually in the right place. "He is not evil, like some baptized men I've met. And when he steals, he does for his family. He has three children now. He must provide for them in some way."

"Athelstan-"

"A-and the human sacrifices are a cultural liaison, I am sure you can excuse that. We Christians eat Your flesh and drink Your blood at mass, it would be hypocritical to-"

"Athelstan!" The Lord's voice reverberates through the room. Is it a room? An alcove in a palace? The fields? An altar? He can never be sure; his senses are not really there, any smell or feeling of grass in his hands is merely a piece of his memories. An existence in Heaven is not real. Not by any actual meaning of the word.

Athelstan takes a deep breath. His thoughts are dizzying.

"Yes, God?" He bows his head, trying to look a little humbler in the eyes of his Creator.

"You love him."

Athelstan raises his eyes and sees the Lord. He is smiling. A complete smile with teeth. It's so perfect and radiant, it turns a little unsettling. Does Odin smile like that? Does Odin smile at all?

By God, Athelstan should really start getting a hold of his thoughts.

"You love Ragnar Lothbrok." His eyes are incredibly deep.

"Yes," Athelstan says without missing a beat. What good would it bring him to lie? He loved Ragnar while he was alive and keeps doing so when he's dead. He loved his eyes, his voice, his opinions, his arrogance, his charm. He loves him whole. "But you already knew."

"Yes." The Lord answers simply. Athelstan's God knows everything and everyone since before their birth. He made each human by hand, he believes. He crafted Athelstan's unruly hair, sculped Lagertha's tempting legs, wrote the symphony of Gyda's sweet laugh, and the battle cry that is Bjorn's spirit; he took a piece of the sky and with it, made Ragnar's eyes. "I already knew."

They share a quiet, peaceful moment.

"I still cannot intervene."

"But, Lord-" Athelstan is ready to begin again, but God cuts him off with a raised hand.

"Athelstan, I cannot intervene." He then leans forward in his seat, his perfectly white robes stretching across his shoulders, a conspirative smirk stretching his face. "You can."

The Lord's smile looks a lot like Ragnar's, Athelstan thinks.

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Alain is a frank soldier, and he does his job with great pride. He fights for God and for his country! There is no greater honor.

He tries his hardest to keep the Lord's will: he doesn't sleep around with whores, like some of his brothers in arms, he gives to charity, and lives in austerity, he attends mass as much as he can and confesses his sins of pride and coveting things that are not his.

He is, he thinks, a good man.

Not the best, but good.

It is because of this small distinction that he is surprised when he is visited in dreams by a messenger coming in God's name.

It is not only the nature of this visit that startles him but the looks of the spirit.

The apparition is dressed in darkly tinted wool, several layers of it. At his waist, there is a broad belt with metal incrustations, and from it hangs an axe. His hair is cut in a strange manner, cropped sides and the long top braided back. His beard is noticeable, not at all like the polished looks of his countrymen. On top of his shoulders drops a fur cape, the finishing touch to look like a barbarian, one of the strangers who come to raid his precious city.

Yet across his chest lies across, and he comes in the way angels do.

"Ave Alain." The strange vision calls. "I come in the name of God, thy Lord."

"Who are you?" Alain asks, his voice strained by fear.

"Fear not." The apparition smiled at him and shows him his hands in an act of playful surrender. "My name is Athelstan," A Saxon name, Alain thinks. A Christian name. "And I come with a message from our Lord."

Alain's voice shakes as he asks.

"What is God's will?"

"No harm shall come to Ragnar Lothbrok."

 "Ragnar Lothbrok?" Alain questions slowly, tasting the name. It sounds foreign and pagan. He doesn't like it very much.

"Ragnar Lothbrok, Sigurdsson, King of the Vikings." Athelstan clarifies for him.

"That is God's will?"

"It is. Shall you have the opportunity to strike him, you shall desist."

"But-"

"You dare go against Him?" Athelstan challenges.

"Never!" Alain cries. "But this barbarian, this beast-"

Athelstan's face transforms into an animalistic snarl. He looks unbearably human.

"Heed the Lord's words, soldier of Frankia and God." The messenger hisses. "He who sends me has a bigger plan for all of us."

Alain wakes up in cold sweat, alarm bells ringing hysterically in the distance.

The Viking King and his people have arrived.

 

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Grisela marvels at the look of this man in his dreams.

She has not dreamt of any man since her husband died. Poor Faro, dead and gone because of that awful plague, leaving her a widowed mother of four. Life for her is hard, to say the least.

Nevertheless, it was God's will, and she is nothing if not faithful.

And if God's will comes delivered to her in the shape of a ruggedly handsome man with sweet, sad eyes, who is she to complain?

He laughs when she asks if he's an angel.

"Far from it." He says, his voice low and charming, and she blushes like a teenager. "But I am here in God's name."

"What can I do to please my Lord?" She asks. She hopes God does not think her as brave as Abraham. She does not know if she could sacrifice her children…

"What is love?"

Her thoughts halt.

"Pardon?" The handsome angel smiles.

"What is love?"

She stammers in search of an answer.

"Well, I-"

"What does God say about love?" He helps her by changing the question. This one is easier because she has the answer memorized.

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects-"

"Did your husband, Faro, protect you?"

She does not ask how he knows her husband's name, he is an angel after all.

"He did."

"Grisela." The angel calls. "I am trying to protect the one I love the most from a terrible fate."

Grisela gasps and nods frantically. She wants to help him, how deeply she wishes to save this other being. How special must they be, to hold the love of an angel!

"Thank you." He looks so relieved of her cooperation. "There will be a raid to Paris. The Norsemen will come and destroy and steal. There is one of them, his name is Ragnar, who will come inside your home looking for goods to steal."

"Ragnar." She mumbles, testing the sound of the name in her mouth and accent. It sounds foreign and fun, and she likes it. It sounds powerful. If she had another child, she would like that name for them. "Is he the one you love?"

The messenger nods.

"He is. I am trying to save his soul."

She chuckles. It must be difficult to lead a pagan through Christian ways when their beliefs are so different.

"What can I do to help?"

"When he comes in, you must tell him not to. I will teach you what to say, and he will leave you and your children and your home."

"Praise be to God," she thanks Him for his mercy. "Teach me."

 

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

 

Paris is a beautiful city, and the Vikings are taking full advantage of it. They're taking all they can, leaving nothing as they curse through the paved streets. They take, they steal, they kill, maim, and rape.

Ragnar has no eyes for these things.

But still, he walks inside a house, because he needs some gain for his family, something he took himself for the woman he calls wife and the children that are his.

Inside the house, there is very little. The walls are bare, and there is little to none furniture.

At the table, there are four little children, just a little smaller than his own. Ragnar can see they were just having dinner. Sitting with them is their mother. He knows it's her because the children all have her nose and her hair, slightly red and curly. They look lovely.

He takes a couple of steps inside and starts looking around.

He knows he got too close to one of the children because the mother stands up from her chair and half raises her hand to stop him from harming them. He is still holding his bloody axe in his hand. That must look threatening. Athelstan didn't like it, at first, either.

Funny little people, with their funny little ways of living.

He's walking a little further inside when she speaks for the first time.

Her voice is a mess of chocked words and an awful accent, but he can understand what she says:

"The priest says, ‘do not harm them'." She speaks this in his tongue. His foreigner's language, too barbaric for anyone but a traveling monk to learn.

He can do nothing but stare at her in astonishment.

She speaks again, repeating the phrase like a prayer.

Her hands tremble, and Ragnar trembles too.

How can this woman speak this one phrase? Is this one of the miracles Athelstan told him about?

Athelstan… His priest. His brother. His friend. His almost.

He catches a glimpse of a crucifix on a white wall. Franks are Christian as well.

Perhaps Athelstan's dead God climbed down and taught the woman. Perhaps Athelstan himself acted as a teacher.

Whatever the answer, this is Athelstan's wish. He will not harm this family. Ragnar distractedly wonders if Athelstan's ghost went home by home to teach every Frank family what to say to save themselves.

He relaxes the grip on his axe. His guts hurt. 

He looks into the woman's eyes and wonders what did she do to gain Athelstan's favor. She must be truly special.

"Alright, Athelstan. I'll leave." He speaks softly into the air, effectively interrupting the woman's practiced words. She whimpers at the sound of his voice.

He leaves the house.

His guts still hurt.  But Athelstan feels closer than before.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I don't know if you know but before I write a fic on the computer, I write the outline on my phone or a notebook and in that moment I write down little notes to remind me of certain moods for the scene and important details, and I want to share with you my favorite ones from today:
> 
> -Athelstan pestering JC to help his pagan boyfriend  
> \- "I ask you, what is love?" (BABY DONT HURT ME NO MORE)  
> \- Jesus: athelstan u gay disaster  
> \- "I am here in hopes of saving the one I love the most from a worst fate." (which would be Hell bc homeboi Ragnar is speeding that highway af)  
> -which is ancient Norse for bitch get a hold of urself   
> -she survives and gets to see Ragnar. She's all 'damn boy i understand why you want to protect him those eyes are a gift'


End file.
